


The Dress

by lillianmmalter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9453581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: Peggy's having issues picking out her wedding dress. Daniel helps.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ellix and [truth_renowned](http://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/truth_renowned) for beta services.

Peggy closed and locked the door to the SSR ladies lavatory behind her with a barely contained sob. No one would think to look for her here, not until well after she managed to get herself under control, anyway.

It was ridiculous, _she_ was ridiculous, but for whatever asinine reason, Peggy just couldn’t seem to help herself.

Alone and finally unobserved, Peggy leaned against the door and cried. The tears were silent, she was at least grateful for that, but her entire body shook uncontrollably and she could barely catch her breath.

What the hell was wrong with her? Why on earth was she having such an extreme reaction to something as silly as trying on a dress?

Of course, the second the thought entered her mind she knew the answer: the last time Peggy wore a dress like the one she’d just tried on, her parents had gotten an awful telegram full of lies and she’d nearly married the wrong man.

But that was absurd. The two situations were nothing alike. She wanted to marry Daniel, to share her life with him, to bear his children if that were possible, more than she’d wanted anything since the war. He was very much the right man she’d been looking for all her life, a true partner who would support her and challenge her and whom she would be proud to support and challenge in turn.

And yet here she was was, crying like an idiot in a one stall lavatory as though she were the heroine of some terrible romantic drama produced by Howard’s movie studio.

She didn’t act like this. It wasn’t who she was. And yet-

A knock on the door was softly followed by the concerned voice of the last person she wanted to see her like this.

“Peggy? Are you in there?”

Peggy dashed her hands at her face and sniffled, trying to get herself back under control.

“Just a moment,” she called. Her voice sounded mostly like it usually did. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. She glanced in the mirror and quickly fixed her makeup. A few moments later she took a deep breath to steel herself and opened the door.

Daniel leveled a long look at her and took her hand, pulling her in the direction of the street door.

“Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

Damn. He noticed.

Peggy squared her shoulders and followed him, not allowing him to drop her hand. He shot her a fond look and smoothed his thumb over hers, adjusting his fingers slightly to play with her ring.

Her heart lightened at that and she couldn’t help smiling. Damn, but she loved this man.

Daniel led them to a park bench a few blocks away from the SSR office. They’d had lunch there together once when they were between cases, corned beef sandwiches on rye that a winking Ana pushed on Peggy as she walked out the door only a few weeks after she and Daniel finally got together. It was the simplest of dates and one Peggy cherished for that very simplicity. She smiled to herself and relaxed even further.

“So, I take it dress shopping didn’t go so well then,” Daniel said once they were settled next to each other.

Peggy’s gut clenched. Damn, damn, damn.

“What makes you say that?”

“The fact that Samberly of all people came into my office saying you were back alone and acting weird.”

That snitch. She’d know better than to trust him again when it came to keeping things from Daniel.

“Weird?”

“His word.”

“Honestly Daniel, when have you ever known me to ‘act weird.’”

He raised an eyebrow and levelled her with one of his looks. “Right now, for one.”

Peggy huffed in mock outrage then softened as his patient look didn’t change. There was nothing for it but to tell the truth.

“I. Didn’t like any of the dresses,” she said haltingly.

“Okay.” He didn’t say anything else, just kept looking at her.

She huffed for real this time, rolling her eyes and looking away from him.

“It’s not a big deal, Daniel. I’ll try again later.”

“Okay.”

She knew exactly what he was doing and a part of her hated that it was working.

“They all reminded me of my wedding dress from the war,” she said, still unable to look at him.

“Ah.”

Oh, damn. He sounded like a kicked puppy. She glanced over at him and he looked it too, though he was doing his best to hide it. She squeezed his hand and turned more fully toward him. He couldn’t be allowed to think she didn’t want him, not ever again.

“They were all perfectly lovely dresses, but they felt impersonal, designed for wealthy women whose biggest ambition is to look as attractive as possible while they hang off their husband’s arm and raise his children, and that simply isn’t me anymore.”

“I’m not sure it ever was,” Daniel said, watching her with those big brown eyes of his.

“I’m not either. But it could have been me. Once.”

“I see.”

“I know you’d never ask that of me, it’s one of the many reasons I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand again. “But those dresses. They remind me too much of that life I almost had, the life my mum wanted for me. She picked out my last one, did you know? The night after I got engaged to Fred she sat me down with a stack of magazines and pointed at dresses until I finally found a few that didn’t make me gag. A week later she came home with one, exactly out of one of those pictures, already bought and paid for. She did the alterations herself.”

“Sounds kinda nice, actually.”

“It would have been, except I’d already gotten an offer from the SOE I couldn’t help thinking about no matter how many times I tried to convince myself that turning it down was for the best, that listening to Fred’s assertions that I should turn it down was for the best.”

Daniel nodded in understanding. He didn’t say anything further, but started playing with her ring again, and Peggy smiled at him fondly. She loved it when he played with her ring. It always made her feel more connected to him, accepted and wanted by him, and that meant more than she could ever properly articulate.

After a while, Daniel looked at her again, an uncertain kind of hope on his face Peggy couldn’t make heads or tails of.

“Will you come home with me?” he asked.

“Now?”

“Yeah. You’ve technically got the rest of the day off you know.”

Peggy’s stomach started to flutter in anticipation. It certainly wasn’t where she was expecting the afternoon to go, but…

“You’re alright playing hooky this early?”

“For this, yeah. I can make an exception.”

Peggy raised a flirtatious eyebrow. “Then I suppose I can be a little irresponsible and not go back either.”

Daniel laughed and looked away. “Not for that. I- there’s something I want to show you. It might help your dress situation.”

Peggy blinked, surprised. She’d never seen anything at Daniel’s house that had much to do with wedding dresses. He kept looking at her, that shy hope still making his eyes soft and his mouth look sweet. She gave him a brief kiss and stood, disentangling their hands just long enough for him to maneuver himself upright from the low bench as well.

“Alright. Let’s go then,” she said.

 

At Daniel’s house, he led Peggy straight through to his bedroom, which did nothing to help her set aside her earlier assumptions. She caught his eye and smirked at him, grinning when he blushed and laughed.

“I promise, that’s not why I brought you here,” he said. Then he looked over at her with a familiar quirk of his mouth. “Well, not the only reason.”

“As long as you’re being honest.”

He huffed a laugh and hung his crutch up on the wall hook he’d installed for just that purpose. Then he opened his closet and reached up on the shelf for a medium-sized box which he carefully walked over to set on the bed.

“I don’t know if this helps with your dress situation, or even if you want to use it, but I’ve had it for awhile and, well. Here, open it.”

He pushed the box slightly toward her and shuffled aside, using the bed for balance. Peggy regarded him a moment then turned to the box, opening the flaps to find masses of white silk.

“Daniel, what on earth-”

But even as she said it, she reached in and instantly recognized what it was.

“Daniel,” she breathed.

“A lot of the guys decided to save theirs so they could give them to their fiancées to get married in after the war,” Daniel said with an odd shyness in his voice. “I didn’t have a girl at the time, but I kinda liked the idea, you know? So I saved it just in case. Figured if nothing else, maybe Edie could use it to get married in.”

Peggy arched an eyebrow at that and he laughed.

“To be fair, I didn’t know at the time that she was a lesbian.”

Peggy smiled then looked back at the parachute in the box. Her breath caught in her chest. Daniel had carried this with him over miles and years in the fleeting hope that one day it could be used again in a way that would ensure his happiness instead of taking him into the heart of danger.

“My dad held onto it for me through most of the war,” Daniel said, his voice slightly vague with memories. “I mailed it to him as soon as I could. When I got back, I was a little surprised he kept it given, well, everything. But he liked the idea of it maybe being a wedding dress someday too, so he made sure it was waiting for me when I got home.”

“Which campaign?” she asked, still fingering the precious material.

“D-Day. There’s still a few holes in there from where I had to pull it out of a tree.”

“You landed in a tree?” Peggy asked, alarmed.

“Next to it, though it was a near thing coming down in the darkness like we did. The parachute wasn’t so lucky.”

Peggy took a deep breath and forced her stomach to unknot itself through sheer will. She would not dwell on how many times she nearly lost him before she ever even met him, she wouldn’t.

“And you kept it all this time.”

He chuckled wryly. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost thrown it away since I got back. Never could bring myself to, though.”

Peggy bit the inside of her lip and reached out to take his hand, squeezing it tightly until he squeezed back. She did her best not to think how many of those times must have been due to him losing hope over her. Or worse, because of her.

“If you wanted, I thought maybe you and Ana could figure something out from it. Make it your own. A little bit of the war we both fought in turned into something beautiful. If you don’t like it though-”

“I love it. It’s perfect. It’s us.”

He looked at her through his eyelashes, the way she still sometimes caught him doing. “Yeah?”

A little bit of the war turned into something beautiful. Yes, that was them.

Peggy pulled him into a kiss that she purposely let get a little out of hand.

“Yes,” she said, pulling just far enough away to look into his eyes. “It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

**Author's Note:**

> In doing research for [Merry Christmas, Soldier](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8905783), I couldn't help getting attached to the idea of Daniel being a paratrooper during the war, so it was really only a matter of time before I wrote this.
> 
> If you want to see some actual WWII era wedding dresses made from silk parachutes [here’s](https://www.pinterest.com/lizzescandonh/parachute-wedding-dress/) a Pinterest board I stumbled upon during my research with some different examples of what people did. I think they’re really sweet, if nothing at all like what I picture Peggy getting married in. Daniel could easily trip over some of those hemlines, for one thing. And a lot of them do look similar to her dress from the war.


End file.
